Legal news and trends for Canadian in-house counsel and c-suite executives
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transition office to a national regulator with a one-year mandate to propose a plan for establishing a single securities regulator. Meanwhile, years of efforts by provincial regulators to set up com- mon rules of their own bore fruit in July, when their umbrella organization, the Canadian Securities Administrators, announced an expansion of the passport system to allow dealers and advisers to operate across the country without registering separately with each com- mission. In the case of companies issuing pro- spectuses, MacLachlan notes the pro- vincial bodies had already harmonized the rules some time ago to allow them to deal with only one principal regula- tor. Previously, after companies identified which provinces they planned to issue securities in, each commission would have the chance to make comments or ask questions before making a decision on whether to approve the offering. Now, the passport system filters approvals through the main regulator. Last month's changes extend the approach to dealers and advisers. "I don't think it will impact us a great deal," says Cindy Petlock, general counsel and corporate secretary for the Canadian National Stock Exchange. Petlock, whose company is among a handful of smaller stock exchanges in Canada, says because the CNSX doesn't deal directly with reg- istration rules, the changes won't affect it much. Nevertheless, she welcomes them. "From our perspective, all of these chang- es, to the extent that you're streamlining categories and you're streamlining pro- cesses, are good from a capital markets perspective. If it reduces costs for some of the key players, then it's got to be a good thing." Essentially, the passport rules allow registrants — dealers who trade securi- ties and advisers who manage investors' money largely on a discretionary basis — to get approval for other provinces through the click of a box on a computer system, says Sandy Jakab, the director of capital markets regulation at the B.C. manaemenreainess o orer ocumen review eecronic courroom aw irm ecnooies conerences venors seecion ria aa aerin rocessin reenion rooco eam e-cour examinaion winess awer eucaion e-iin rainin suoena uces ecum securi oic mee coner coss reucion anon ier searc e-evience crieria nowee enerrise conen comiance ea ecnooies iiaion reareness e-iscover 26 • OCTOBER 2009 Untitled-5 1 INHOUSE 5/4/09 10:50:45 AM